by D. L. O'Neal
"That everything is where it belongs, and still in working order!"
Gabriel did his best to supply solid proof.
A LONG TIME later, Kalesia kissed his shoulder and sat up.
"It was you, wasn't it? In my vision?"
Chapter 13
"YES."
"Oh, God, Gabriel. Why didn't you tell me?" She had been wrong. Nightmares were not necessarily easier to deal with than visions. She knew that now.
Gabriel had taught her.
He shifted until his shoulders were propped against the headboard. He brought his knees up, putting his arms on them and letting his hands dangle between them. "I didn't know I was the man in your vision at first."
"Not even when I had it the second time?" Kalesia's stomach cramped. Not until this moment had she comprehended the full severity of the torture he had undergone. But she knew now. More than anyone outside Gabriel himself. She had lived through a portion of that torture with him.
"I had my suspicions. That's all they were until detail after detail kept linking me to you. The second report clinched it in my mind."
"How can you be so sure? It could still be another man." Kalesia hugged her arms about her middle.
Gabriel nodded. "It could be. But it isn't. Ironic, isn't it that after years of searching, the man in the shadows has instead found me."
"GABRIEL, I warn you," Kalesia hissed the next morning as Gabriel shoved the kitchen door open, "I'll want the whole story, all the bits and pieces, when this is over." Last night, after dropping his bombshell, he'd refused to say another word. She was very much afraid she knew why; Gabriel was on the hunt and he wanted to protect her from that aspect of his personality. Well, she wouldn't have it. Like it or not, they were partners and partners shared the bad as well as the good.
"Is everything in place?" Gabriel asked as they joined the group around the table. Disapproval coated his voice.
"We've got security in place around the cabin. Men, locals and Feds, are posted in the woods, with full view of all entrances. Electronic surveillance has been set up in and around the house and barn. Since we want Kalesia to appear as vulnerable as possible, I've arranged to bring in a horse so she'll have a reason to leave the cabin on a regular basis. If our man is as smart as we think, it'll take him only a few days to discern her pattern and come to the conclusion that the barn is his best bet," Harley finished with satisfaction.
Gabriel's knuckles turned white on his coffee cup. "Why the hell didn't you consult me? You know her vision has her getting killed in a barn. This way, the damn thing reeks of setting up matters for Kalesia's vision to come true."
"Because you're too close. You've lost the necessary objectivity, Gabe."
"I've never been that close to a mission." Gabriel's voice could have cut steel.
"You've never cared this much before." Harley's voice was understanding, but final.
"If anything happens to her, I'll make each one of you pay," he stated coldly. Kalesia stared at Gabriel in disbelief.
"Ease up, man. Don't you think we've added in the danger to her? We don't want her hurt any more than you do. Hell, if something does go wrong, I'll give you my knife to cut my throat." Wolf's quiet promise sounded all too sincere to Kalesia's ears.
"No one is going to get hurt, so this conversation is a moot point. Is that clear?" she challenged with a defiant glare at Gabriel, then the others. To her satisfaction, the conversation returned to the details of the trap.
EVERYTHING SLID into place with a polished efficiency that was uncanny. It seemed almost too easy, Kalesia mused as she looked out the bedroom window of Wolf's cabin three nights later. Dammit, she wondered, irritated, as the long twilight faded and night slipped through the woods, why hadn't Gabriel warn her about the sheer boredom of waiting? The soughing of long-needled Australian pine reinforced the cabin's isolation. Gabriel had probably neglected to mention it just to make her regret her insistence on being the bait, she decided morosely.
Kalesia shivered in the warm evening air. To think she had actually thought it would be something of a relief to get away from Gabriel's continual lectures and reminders. The man was nothing if not persistent. And vocal. Especially once he learned of the barn.
Trees and a slight rise blocked her view of the empty house the men were using as a base, but just knowing they were only minutes away kept her from feeling so quite alone.
Reluctantly, she closed and carefully locked the window, shutting out the tempting evening air. Throwing herself down onto of the bed, Kalesia fervently hoped something happened soon. Waiting, she discovered, was hard on the nerves. Besides, she missed Gabriel.
Kalesia grabbed the book she had brought with her off the nightstand, and opened it. Her eye fell on a particularly steamy passage. A mischievous smile slowly curved her lips. Kalesia began reading in a low, husky voice.
Out loud.
"YE GODS, would you listen to this!" The FBI agent manning the taps in the nearby house snatched off his headphones and pushed a button. A sultry voice began purring over the air. Within seconds four men crowded around the console, complaints of night duty and battery acid coffee forgotten.
"I'd be more than willing to take her off Steele's hands. Hell, that little lady could do me with an entire hostile army closing in."
"Not me. I'd want lots of time. And privacy," the second man, not more than twenty-five, added as an afterthought, tugging on the collar of his suddenly too tight shirt. A sheen of sweat glistened on his brow.
Badger walked by the open door in time to hear the last of the first man's statement. Curious, he poked his head inside before jerking it out hurriedly.
Christ! Gabe was going to burst a gasket. He pelted down the short hallway.
"Sam! Wolf! Get hold of Gabe before Kalesia starts a war. Or finds herself in the middle of one!" He rapidly outlined what was happening.
GABRIEL ANSWERED the phone in the middle of the first ring. He had been in the house for less than an hour. It had been a long day made longer by his inability to be near Kalesia. Warned to keep near home so the unknown suspect would think Kalesia vulnerable, he'd worked methodically on building the frame for his latest greenhouse. It helped keep his hands busy and off his cellular phone. The urge to constantly check and see if the thing was in working order was damn near overwhelming. Especially as day had slid into evening.
God, he hated trusting her safety to other hands.
"Steele," he barked into the receiver.
"Gabriel, you better get Kalesia on the phone double-quick. She's got four of my best men slobbering worse than a bulldog after a French poodle in heat." Sam hung up, leaned back in the wooden office chair and grinned hugely. "Stick around, boys. The fun is about to commence."
KALESIA HAD one eye on the romance novel and one on the clock beside her bed when the phone rang. She grinned. She'd have to remember to thank Wolf for reassuring her that the electronic bugs would pick up the slightest sound.
The phone rang three times before she picked it up.
"Yes?" Her voice was sugary sweet.
"Lady, you'd make a pacifist a firm believer in capital punishment," Gabriel grated on the other end.
Kalesia put the book down, sat up in bed and curled her legs beneath her, making herself comfortable. She smiled wickedly. Less than four minutes since she started reading. "I've always believed pacifism overrated."
"Really?"
"Um-hmm. I mean, it's understandable how a person could be motivated toward a little violence. Under the right circumstances, of course." Kalesia barely restrained a chuckle.
She actually heard Gabriel grind his teeth. "You might feel it safe to bait me now, but I'll remind you of that later," Gabriel pledged, his voice as smooth as Carolina shine, and holding the same promise of hidden fire.
Goose bumps lifted the fine hair on Kalesia's arms and a shiver slithered sensuously down her spine. She twisted a lock of hair around her finger and lowered her voice to a seductive whisper. "Promi
se?"
"Count on it, lady. I will definitely remind you of this conversation. In the meantime, quit reading that goddamn book!" He hung up the phone with a crash.
"Quit reading?" Kalesia mused out loud. "Oh, I don't think so. It makes life so much more exciting." She found another passage, this one twice as provocative as the one before.
IT WAS exactly eight thirty-five the next evening when a slight rustle in the hay told Kalesia she was no longer alone in the barn. She was singing off-key, a sexy, country ballad about slow hands and long, easy loving. Kalesia turned, already knowing what she would see.
"At least I don't have to listen to Gabriel say `I told you so'."
Chapter 14
"YOU REALLY shouldn't be so ready to believe all you see and read, my dear." Senator Clayton Morne, fifty-nine and the picture of clean-cut American manhood, smiled, showing perfect white teeth.
It was a pity he was rotted so black on the inside, Kalesia thought. The difference between Morne and Gabriel was that as between night and day. Both men were lethal and dangerous. Yet where Gabriel used violence as a last resort, taking no pleasure in the act, Morne enjoyed the fear he invoked in his victims. He was capable of kissing a woman even as he slit her throat. Gabriel's violence, at least, was honest.
"Senator Morne." Kalesia nodded her head with cool acknowledgment at Florida's senior senator. "I suppose this is the part where I'm supposed to beg for mercy," Kalesia speculated with a poise she didn't feel, casually bending to pick up the feed bucket with an absentminded air. She straightened, the metal pail held loosely in her right hand. "Then again, begging isn't my style. It's so undignified."
Morne threw back his head and laughed, but his eyes were cold, the cold of liquid nitrogen. The kind of cold that burned to the bone. There was something else in his eyes, a sensual speculation that turned Kalesia's stomach with disgust and more that a hint of sick fear.
"You've put me to a great deal of trouble, my dear. I would enjoy seeing you beg. You might even learn to enjoy it. With a little practice, most women do." He ran a hand suggestively down the barrel of the gun. It was an exact duplicate of the pistol she had pointed out to Badger. The last light of the evening filtered through the cracks in the roof of the barn. Dust motes danced in the waning beams.
Kalesia closed her mind to the reality of her vision coming true. Now, of all times, she had to keep her wits about her.
Her hand tightened on the pail's handle. Cool it, she warned herself, he's trying to spook you. You're not alone. Every word he says is being heard and recorded. Get him to talk.
"If you don't mind, I think I'll pass." Kalesia racked her brain for a way to lead the conversation in the direction she needed it to go.
"Pity. I would have enjoyed it." The barrel of the pistol tilted slightly. Kalesia rushed into speech.
"Why? Why me?"
"Come, come. You're a reasonably bright young woman. Surely you've drawn a few conclusions?" The gun never wavered. He smiled, showing all of his teeth. Kalesia decided that she hated that phony smile. She much preferred the smile of a predator that stalked in the open, rather than from the shadows.
"No. That's one thing I could never understand--why me? We've never even met!"
The Senator preened, enjoying his power over her. Kalesia began to feel more secure, certain she'd been handed a handle as to what made the Senator tick, or to at least control him long enough to allow him to thoroughly implicate himself.
"It is so simple. Most brilliant plans, I've learned, are simply conceived. Long ago I discovered that the key to success is information, inside information. I found a deputy susceptible to, how shall I put it? a little pressure. He fed me the information I needed to keep my business in operation. You'd be surprised," Morne put in with macabre humor, "how law enforcement frowns on true entrepreneurship. A little drugs coming into the country here, a small shipment of arms outward bound there." He shook his head in mock sorrow.
"So short-sighted. No vision. Well, as I was saying. I bought insurance. You know," he told her meditatively, "you should never underestimate the hand of fate. Two years ago you reported a vision of a murder. No one saw fit to inform me at the time but, voila! you reappear with a vision of another murder, this time your own. A memory is jogged, my man relates the tale to me, more in amusement than anything else. Suddenly, you've become a threat. See how simple that is?"
"But it doesn't make sense. No one believed me. People think I'm crazy when I tell them I have visions. What harm could I have possibly done to you?" she cried, appalled at how casually he dismissed her life.
"You disappoint me, Miss Brannigan. I expected more intelligence from you than this. Because," he explained as if she were a particularly slow student, "the chance existed that, one day you would make someone wonder. And, if they began to wonder, they might have begun to investigate."
"My worries were well founded as it turned out. I can't allow any further investigation. If that happens, they'll find more deaths. And from there they might discover a trail leading back to me. I cannot afford past baggage to encumber my presidential bid," he confessed matter-of-factly. "Really, my dear, a child could have reasoned that through."
"I admit, I hadn't expected you to turn to Gabriel Steele. That hurried my timetable a bit. I knew once he got his teeth into the Crump case, it wouldn't be long before he discovered my connection to a certain South America drug cartel. The man is most tenacious, as I have reason to know."
For an instant, Kalesia was thrown into the middle of a nightmare. A nightmare she recognized with sick horror. Again she was overwhelmed, pounded with images of pain, blood...and a deep, perverse enjoyment. Desperately, Kalesia waged war with a past that wasn't her own.
"You're mad," Kalesia whispered. She balanced her weight on one foot, ready to throw the bucket and sprint for safety.
Displeasure flashed briefly in the brown eyes. "Insults, my dear?" He shook off his anger. "It will be most tragic, I assure you. Most tragic," he reiterated with mocking mournfulness. "The press will have a field day with it. `Poor young woman takes own life after discovering lover's secret identity as an assassin.' Then again, the poor thing was never too stable. Thought she was psychic, you know. I have the suicide note right here." He dug into the inside breast pocket of his suit.
Kalesia's eyes were drawn to the single sheet of white paper covered in dark, neat computer print as if it were a load stone. It required a monumental effort of will to tear her gaze away. She accomplished it somehow.
"That stuff you sent me about Gabriel--I assume it was you--" she waited until he nodded his head, "--was it true?" Kalesia was curious about what he would say. Would he admit he lied or continue to taunt her?
"Oh, yes, it was true...for the whole. Just not as I presented it." He seemed pleased that she had asked.
"How did you get hold of the information? It seems pretty obvious that some of it was classified."
"My dear, you really must not underestimate me or my sources. People in high places are not immune to persuasion. For some it is drugs," he shrugged carelessly. "For others, past associations that could prove embarrassing if made public."
"No one will believe I killed myself," she said. "Major Harley sent me to Gabriel. He'll be more than curious if I suddenly turn up dead," Kalesia insisted, unable to keep a quiver from coloring her voice despite her knowledge help was only seconds away.
"Ah, but he didn't know of Mr. Steele's past. He'll be just as shocked as everyone else when he learns he sent you into the proverbial lion's den, probably exceedingly guilty, too. He strikes me as that type of man...dedicated to making life safer for others and all that."
"My friends and family know I hate guns. They'll never believe I'd shoot myself." Where was Harley? Surely they had enough to convict Morne by now? What if the wire wasn't working. And what of Gabriel? Where was he? She had half expected him to burst in before now. Kalesia had a sickening thought. Dear Lord in heaven, what if Morne had already found Gabr
iel?
Morne looked truly shocked. "Did I say I was going to shoot you? How remiss of me. Don't worry, nothing so crude as that. No, my dear, you are going to become another drug-related statistic, I'm afraid. The problem of drugs in this country really is epidemic, you know. No one will think twice about it."
He waved the gun. "Be a good girl and put down that bucket" Morne reached into the pocket of the expensive Italian jacket and removed a hypodermic.
"You're getting sloppy, Crenshaw. Ah, but it's Morne now, isn't it?"
Morne whirled around, the gun coming up.
Stepping out of the shadows of a stall, Gabriel waited, hands held loosely by his side.
It took Kalesia, startled at Gabriel's silent arrival, a minute to realize Morne had forgotten entirely about her. Gabriel shot her a glance from under lowered lashes. She understood what he wanted her to do instantly. Looking frantically about, she dove behind a small stack of hay. Her hiding place was only two bales high and two bales deep, but Kalesia figured beggars couldn't be choosy. At least it hid her from view. She tried not to think how easy she would be to find.
Peeking from between the bales, Kalesia saw a change come over Morne when he realized Gabriel was alone.
"How obliging of you, Mr. Steele. I was coming to find you next. You were the one person I feared might actually ferret out my identity when I learned that you were inquiring into Crump's death. There was a good possibility you might link the manner of death of those he killed, back to my days in Intelligence in Vietnam. I really shouldn't have given into the impulse of resurrecting those days. I won't make that mistake again." Morne's assurance grew. He gestured scornfully.
"Very foolish of you to come unarmed." Gabriel's eyes flickered off to one side, just the minutest movement, but Morne saw.
"Oh, don't worry about the woman. I shall find her later. She's trapped. She has to get by me to escape. No, I'm much more interested in you, Mr. Steele. If you want to know the truth," he confided with the air of revealing a state secret, "I've been fascinated by you for years. Ah, I can see you understand my meaning." Morne's innate cruelty surfaced, and he taunted the younger man.